Who will voters blame if we default?

[Soggy in NOLA]

No, Zander, old boy, they will not. They will blame the people who have been using that stick for years. And, all the while, increasing the debt.

And, if the economy goes down as bad, or worse, than in the dirty thirties, they will blame those for whom the GOP is working. And gated communities will be no defense.

Thank god for the 2nd ammendment then!

Yep, and who do you think has the guns? Do you think that the citizens, even those of very conservative leanings, will think the system is fine when their children are hungry and the wealthy are living in the lap of luxury a mile or two down the road?

I'll be just fine... and so will most people I know. Now you on the other hand.... you seem like the type that gets floored by any disruption of the norm. And that is unfortunate.

 

[the_savage]

Obama just threw this whole mess, lock, stock and barrel to the Congress to solve. No way does a bill emerge from the House, or from a compromise between House and Senate. Hate to say it, but Obama has outsmarted the fire eaters in the GOP. The only hope now is that the economy turns so bad because of this that people forget how it happened and Obama looks bad with the economic collaspe. How can that make him look good?

Too bad about the economy and all those people who will be hurt, but it is America's fault for electing this person as president. Its as if they were trying to stick it too us, well suck it, who is laughing now?

 

[the_savage]

because their laws cant pass our full government.

The other elected officials are not required to do whatever the right wing lead house says.

Correct. However, the country voted the right wing lead house into power and that is where bills originate.

So if they keep trying to pass budgets and bills about the debt ceiling and the dems keeps saying no and the president keeps threatening a veto then who is obstructing the changes we need and the debt ceiling issue?

Unforunetly the Tea Party can't pass bills by themselves, Boehner, McConnell and the other Wall Street Republicans won't go along with a Balanced Budget Amendment, huge cuts to Medicare and Social Security and so I don't think a bill will go to the Chosen one to sign

 

[Claudette]

People, this ain't a game. The GOP is going to shut down our government to protect the very wealthy from paying the same per centage of taxes as you or I. Simple fact. They would destroy the sytem rather than have an equitable taxation of our citizens.

So, if they win, and the President caves, the very wealthy gain even a larger share of the national income, and the middle class and working poor lose their retirement, and access to healthcare after retirement. So we in the middle class can take a slow economic death, with the very wealthy gaining all, or we can let them crash the system, and they go down with us immediatly. I much prefer the latter.

You guys really need new schtick. If you confiscated every dollar held by the evil wealthy, you'd have about $980,000,000,000.

It's a spending problem... unfortunately the uber Left has promised so much to so many, it's all crumbling under its own weight. It's over; get used to it.

Ditto big time.

Wonder what will happen to this crappy economy if you phase out the Bush tax cuts on anyone the Govt deems as RICH. Anyone making $250,000 a year??

I'm sure all those that own businesses large and small will rush right out and hire new folks. Expand their businesses and take a chance they will be able to afford Obamacare.

Yup. Thats what I would do.

 

[Ame®icano]

Q-poll: GOP will get blame if debt ceiling not raised « Hot Air

The GOP is playing a very dangerous game.

I'm going to put the vast majority of the blame on the GOP and its Tea Party radicals.

They're the ones who appear to have been unwilling to come to any kind of compromise.

They're the ones walking out of negtiations.

Their motive is obvious....to make Obama a one term POTUS.

But to bring down the US economy for that is not the act of a patriot.

It's the act of selfish short-sighted partisans.

Hell! ~ even mainline REPUBLICANS in Congress aren't supporting these idiotic TP radicals.

I'm assuming from your post that liberals are not radicals and they cannot be blamed for anything. Two part deal is reached between House and Senate, while WH is saying NO. Who is to blame now?

White House stokes debt-ceiling crisis

 

[AVG-JOE]

Q-poll: GOP will get blame if debt ceiling not raised « Hot Air

The GOP is playing a very dangerous game.

I'm going to put the vast majority of the blame on the GOP and its Tea Party radicals.

They're the ones who appear to have been unwilling to come to any kind of compromise.

They're the ones walking out of negtiations.

Their motive is obvious....to make Obama a one term POTUS.

But to bring down the US economy for that is not the act of a patriot.

It's the act of selfish short-sighted partisans.

Hell! ~ even mainline REPUBLICANS in Congress aren't supporting these idiotic TP radicals.

makes you the moron. The Tea Party aren't extreme they aren't radical. those are your party's buzzwords. The Tea Party are a large cross section of American Federal Income Tax Payers and they think they've been TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY,, what your side is fighting for is unliminted mindless spending of the Tea Party's Taxes.. They know it, you know it and we know it. What you say you want is unfettered spending, you want to demonize the givers and maximize you theft from their pockets. They're on to your stupid ways and they are protesting. You can't just keep raising taxes and pissing the money away. Your dream life is coming to an end and it really pisses you off.

Then why the **** do they cling to the patently unfair tax code currently feeding the status quo?

Simple taxes = fair taxes.

Fair taxes, a budget balanced by law and then collectively invest in ourselves.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Do either of them come any where near proposing a pathway toward fair taxes?

The root of our problem with both congress and the presidency lay in their ass-u-me-ed power to tax us differently from each other.

Simple Taxes = Fair Taxes

Fair taxes, budget balanced by law. It doesn't have to be rocket science - it's complicated because someone is making money on the complications. Follow the money.

Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been. If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year. In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade

If Corporations And The Rich Paid Taxes At The Same Level As The 1960s, The Debt Would Disappear | ThinkProgress




Reuters) - Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget

Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll | Reuters

Very nice. Except that wealthy people pay more money today, both as a percentage of total income paid and as a total number of dollars, than they did in the 1960s.
Raising taxes on the rich will not balance the budget. If you raised taxes to 100% you would still not balance the budget.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ]‪EAT THE RICH!‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

The answer isn't 'higher taxes' now anymore than the answer in 2003 was 'lower taxes'... the answer was and remains 'fair taxes'.

The time for a ground-up rebuild of our patently unfair tax code with an emphasis on fairness through simplicity is now.

Simple tax code = fair taxes.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Voters need to look in the mirror when assessing blame.

Not all of us, BA.


In this case I'm afraid that the only voters who need to look into the mirror are those who voted for the wankers who are ready willing (and able?) to bring this nation down economically.

That would be those voters who bought into the Tea Party's insane beliefs about how to deal with this problem.

Not all Republicans, not all Democrats, not all independents, but JUST the people who voted for the OBSTRUCTIONISTS in Congress.

unfettered spending will bring the this nation down economically. the only place you can have unlimited spending is in the land of unicorns and cotton candy.

Not untrue. Doesn't mean the Caucus of 'No!' won't be responsible for the crash, or even the flat tire, if that's all it turns out to be.

The TEA Party appears to many voters to be simply protecting the unfair tax code that feeds the current status quo. Unless they compromise their weird ideological stance on conserving the current unfair tax code, look at rebuilding it, and doing so enthusiastically, their protest will fail.

 

[editec]

Voters need to look in the mirror when assessing blame.

Not all of us, BA.


In this case I'm afraid that the only voters who need to look into the mirror are those who voted for the wankers who are ready willing (and able?) to bring this nation down economically.

That would be those voters who bought into the Tea Party's insane beliefs about how to deal with this problem.

Not all Republicans, not all Democrats, not all independents, but JUST the people who voted for the OBSTRUCTIONISTS in Congress.

unfettered spending will bring the this nation down economically. the only place you can have unlimited spending is in the land of unicorns and cotton candy.

Well that's true, without doubt.

But understanding that economic reality is a far stretch from not understanding the catastrophic outcome of the US government reneging on its outstanding debt obligations.

You do realize that failure to maintain confidence in the USA existing outstanding debt instruments will be a kind national financial suicide, right?

While I certainly agree that we ought to be working down the current debt, this is NOT the best way to do that.

In fact, this is the worst way to do that as it will neither help us pay down the debt now, nor set us up to pay it in the future, either.

Politics by spite is a really bad way to run a nation.

 

[editec]

You guys really need new schtick. If you confiscated every dollar held by the evil wealthy, you'd have about $980,000,000,000.

.

Where's you come up with that number, Sog?

Is that supposed to represent the aggregate wealth of the top 1%? Surely then that number is far too low.

Or perhaps that number is supposed to represent the top 1%'s aggregate annual income? Then perhaps that number makes sense?

But if the top 1% in aggregate makes $980 billion a year, then they cannot be paying a tax rate any higher than 11.6%

Why? Because 998/84 (total taxes paid) = 11.6%.

Somethings not right about these numbers, folks.

Perhaps the following data (from a very conservative organization) will be useful?

The Internal Revenue Service has released new data on individual income taxes, reporting on calendar year 2008, a year of economic recession in which the world's financial system was temporarily in a perilous state.
The amount of individual income taxes paid fell substantially in 2008, by $84 billion, and nationally, average income tax rates were at their lowest levels since 2004. The average tax rate for returns with a positive liability went from 12.68 percent in 2007 to 12.24 percent in 2008.

As the data below show, incomes reported by tax returns at the high end of the income spectrum plummeted from 2007 to 2008, as did their share of the nation's income and income taxes paid. In 2008, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 38.0 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 20.0 percent of adjusted gross income, compared to 2007 when those figures were 40.4 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively. Both of those figures—share of income and share of taxes paid—were their lowest since 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) and paid 36.9 percent of federal individual income taxes.

Each year from 2005 to 2007, the top 1 percent's constantly growing share of income earned and taxes paid set a record. That trend reversed in 2008. In fact, the income share for the top 1 percent of tax returns was lower in 2008 than in 2000, largely due to differences in capital gains.

Another indicator of this reversal in the income and tax shares of the top 1 percent is that during 2007, the top 1 percent had actually paid more in federal income tax than the bottom 95 percent, a comparison that was much remarked on a year ago. But the diminished income of the top 1 percent in 2008 means that the comparison no longer holds. During 2008, the bottom 95 percent (AGI under $159,619) paid 41.3 percent of the total collected, a larger share than the 38.0 percent paid by the top 1 percent (AGI over $380,354).

The top-earning 5 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $159,619), however, still paid far more than the bottom 95 percent. The top 5 percent earned 34.7 percent of the nation's adjusted gross income, but paid approximately 58.7 percent of federal individual income taxes.

source

 

[JRK]

Whose to blame?

The GOP has already passed a budget for 2012 in the house
House GOP Passes 2012 Budget Resolution - Humberto Sanchez - NationalJournal.com
This was done in April

I do not know how you could blame the GOP

 

[Greenbeard]

Whose to blame?

The GOP has already passed a budget for 2012 in the house
House GOP Passes 2012 Budget Resolution - Humberto Sanchez - NationalJournal.com
This was done in April

I do not know how you could blame the GOP

Legislation dismantling Medicare, gutting the safety net, and slashing income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans is quite the feather in their cap. Odd that it doesn't produce a balanced budget until about three decades from now, though. Luckily it raises the debt ceiling from the current $14.294 trillion to $23.102 trillion over the next decade.